1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid ejecting apparatus provided with a piezoelectric element having an electrode and a piezoelectric layer generating a change in pressure in a pressure generating chamber communicating with a nozzle opening.
2. Related Art
As a typical example of a liquid ejection head mounted on a liquid ejecting apparatus there is, for example, an ink jet type recording head, in which a part of the pressure generating chamber communicating with the nozzle opening ejecting ink droplets is configured by a vibration plate, and in which the vibration plate is deformed by a piezoelectric element to eject the ink of the pressure generating chamber as ink droplets from a nozzle opening by applying pressure thereto.
Typical examples of a piezoelectric material used as the piezoelectric layer configuring this kind of piezoelectric element include lead zirconate titanate (below, referred to as PZT) can be given; however, from the viewpoint of environmental problems, there is a demand for lead-free or reduced lead content piezoelectric material. Thus, as lead-free piezoelectric materials, for example, there are BiFeO3 based piezoelectric materials containing Bi and Fe (for example, JP-A-2007-287745).
However, since such a piezoelectric layer formed of a lead-free or reduced lead content compound oxide does not have a sufficient displacement amount in comparison with lead zirconate titanate (PZT), there is a demand for the improvement of the displacement amount.
Here, of course, such a problem is similarly present even in other liquid ejecting heads ejecting liquid droplets other than ink as well as the ink jet type recording head, and also similarly present even in piezoelectric element used other than in liquid ejecting heads.